Optimal Design of Path Planning and Battery Resource Allocation under a Vehicle--UAV Collaborative Mode

To address the efficiency limitations of vehicle--UAV collaborative operations in large-scale, high-frequency inspections of flexible DC transmission lines, this paper proposes a path--energy coordinated bi-level nested optimization framework, targeting the inherent strong coupling among vehicle path planning, UAV task scheduling, and battery resource allocation. First, a unified multi-objective constrained optimization model is formulated at the system level, integrating vehicle parking decisions, UAV operational radius, and path-dependent energy consumption into a single decision framework to characterize the intrinsic coupling between routing and energy allocation. Second, a dual-layer collaborative optimization structure is developed, where closed-loop interaction between outer-layer routing decisions and inner-layer energy scheduling enables the co-evolution and joint convergence of vehicle paths, UAV task assignments, and battery resource distribution. A path-feature-based…